Bengaluru: The year was 2017 and Shapath Bharadwaj was a bright teenaged double trap shooter who had burst on to the senior circuit, making the World Cup squad. The following year, double trap was dropped from the Olympic programme and Shapath had to switch to trap shooting.
“Obviously there’s the technical side to the change that you can always learn. The psychological switch took time. The experience in Greece changed how he approached learning. Before Greece, Bharadwaj admitted, he could be stubborn about a few things.
But when you’re 16-17 and you’re called a name-to-watch-out-for, considered among the best young shooters and then asked to start from zero, I think it takes a toll on your mental health,” Shapath, 24, told HT about having to change from double trap to trap. “There is no provision in place to help you navigate such a huge change—to go from being ranked top 20 in the world, having a mental roadmap and goals chalked out for yourself to not being sure of anything while still carrying the same expectations.
“I became easier to teach after I came back from Greece,” he said. “After 16 months away, I rediscovered myself as a shooter and as a person.”
In May this year, Shapath was at the Shotgun World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan, annoyed with himself for missing the final by two targets. “I was pushing myself a lot to be in that final and it was my first competition back in the international circuit after a while. I just let that sit with me for a day. It’s my first major Games. It took a while to process the emotions. “The dream to compete at an Olympics remains. Hopefully, in two years.”
I was annoyed to miss the final, that’s when my coaches told me that I had been picked in the Asian Games team. I prefer to focus on the process,” he said.
“I suppose, unlike earlier, I’m not the win-win-win, competition-competition-competition guy anymore.
